Ann Coulter Cover Girl

I didn't get angry, as many liberals did, when Time made George Bush Person of the Year. After all, like him or hate him, he is a major player in all the governmental disasters we are now seeing. I found him as deserving of title as earlier winners, such as the one pictured here.

Bush on the cover makes sense. Ann Coulter (aka Ms. Right) does not. The article does touch on her weaknesses as a real pundit, informing readers that "People say that Jon Stewart has blurred the line between news and humor, but his Daily Show airs on a comedy channel. Coulter goes on actual news programs and deploys so much sarcasm and hyperbole that she sounds more like Dennis Miller than Limbaugh."

The article fails to fully describe the dishonesty and hatred seen in Coulter's work, but we do get a small taste of her bigotry:

"Coulter says profiling makes sense when Muslims have committed virtually all the terrorist attacks against Americans for the past 25 years—she begins a terrorism timeline in her latest book with Iranian militants taking Americans hostage in Tehran in 1979. She says of Timothy McVeigh's bombing in Oklahoma City, Okla., "One does not a pattern make." And why wouldn't al-Qaeda recruit white or black Americans? "It's harder than it sounds. You're increasing the transaction costs."

"It would be easier to accept Coulter's reasoning if a shadow of bigotry didn't attach to many of her statements about Arabs and Muslims. At the reception after her CPAC speech, she mocked some of the more ornate claims of torture from suspected terrorists detained by the U.S.: "It's completely insane stuff. 'The government flew me to Las Vegas and made me have sex with a horse,'" she said to laughter. But then she added with a grin, "Liberals are about to become the last people to figure out that Arabs lie." How did such a flagrantly impolitic person become such a force in our politics?"

People like Coulter who would have been ignored as an extremist kook in earlier years receive far more attention than they deserve. Placing her on the cover might sell a few more issues, but hardly is something Time should be proud of.